


Running From Nothing

by addy_is_not_a_laddy



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-05
Updated: 2014-08-05
Packaged: 2018-02-11 20:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2081667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/addy_is_not_a_laddy/pseuds/addy_is_not_a_laddy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roxy's tried so hard to prepare her baby, and she's still not sure it will be enough.</p><p>A prequel to Understated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running From Nothing

Your name is Roxy Lalonde. Roxy Lalonde. That's a truth. What are more truths? What is going on? Echoes and confusion bounce around your head, and you hear yourself. Inside your head different parts of you are yelling at each other. You scream internally at the impossibilities you can sense in your memories and it quiets down for a moment before someone else in your mind gets just as distressed, and as an overtone there is a calm adult voice surveying the situation. The panic of the other not-you is gone after another moment, and only the calm adult voice is left. You feel like the adult not-you is smiling at you before she too bows out and you are left alone in your head to puzzle out what the hell just happened.

Except that you can feel encroaching memories wash over you. Memories that you never had until this moment, but they feel distant like you only watched them happen instead of lived them. In them are the memories of two women that are not you, yet are.

Roxaenne Lalonde, daughter of a happily conservative middle-class family, and that had gone to a party just a few weeks ago and taken a tumble with Dirk Strider, the son of a similarly middle-class family. They both had been more than a little drunk, and she had had a crush on that same Dirk Strider for such a long time that it only seemed to make sense that they would end up together. She had been willfully blind to his signals and when they were both drunk he had made the decision to try and make her happy, since they were such good friends and he loved her as much as it was possible for him to love her.

Except that a couple days ago he had finally come out and told her that he was gay, and she had taken it well at the time, but that was because she had only just begun to suspect her condition. She had laughed off the ache in her chest and finally allowed herself to see the hints he had been dropping at her for more that a couple years. She were so irregular anyway that a little break could have been normal, but the sinking feeling in her gut told her that she hadn't used a condom, that this was going to be more than mere irregularity. More than a late period.

And the instant she had seen that little pink plus her world imploded and you were there.

Something about someone else your new almost-memories are telling you is that she was in her mid-thirties, a scientist, a mother, and dead. She died quickly, there was little pain.

And then there are your memories, just as comfortable and familiar as you remember them. Except for the dying part which you would like to forget. Carapaces and loneliness. Hours of talking to friends across time and over the internet.

You shakily stand from the toilet, and pull up your jeans. The pregnancy test lies on the floor, forgotten some time in your reverie, in the sudden battle in your mind. You feel anxiety building up in your stomach, but you squash it flat and let the numbness take over. Because you died too. You were killed by a dog-girl with rage in her eyes and now you 're a pregnant teenage girl. You have parents now... But it hardly seems to matter and you can't make yourself care or be excited that you have them. Some part of you wants to be happy, to be so excited it can't speak, and it's not the dominant part. First, you need to tell Dirk about this. Even if this Dirk isn't your Dirk, isn't the man that you remember from lonely conversations on a dead earth, he is still someone that you love and trust. He won't abandon you in this mess that the both of you made.

You walk slowly around the halls, and as you look at the unfamiliar doors and halls you can remember which rooms are which through Roxaenne's memories. You find your room, flip the light on reflexively, and enter it slowly. The surroundings something that you never could have imagined in your wildest dreams, pictures of a loving family and of friends you can only halfway recognize. The bed is large and pink, a cat sitting on it smugly. Your cell phone sits next to it, and you pick up the phone and scroll through the contacts before calling Dirk. What time is it? You hadn't even checked. It rings twice before the voice you want picks up.

“Sup Roxy?” The voice is calm, a bit tired. You really should check what time it is.

You don't even hesitate. “I'm pregnant, Dirk.” Your voice is a little scratchy, and maybe a little different than you think it should be.

There is silence on the other end for a little while, before he sighed heavily. “I've been wanting to move out anyway. Do your parents know yet?” You can picture him running his hand through his hair, hear the tinge of resignation in his voice. He knows this is as much his own fault as yours... her's. Really this has nothing to do with you, but the decision was made before you even got here.

You are about to answer when you hear her mother's voice calling you. You can hear her steps on the wooden floor, click, click, click. She has come home from work late, your mind helpfully supplies. So not in bed already. “I left the test in the bathroom, so probably in a few minutes.” Sure enough, you hear the click echoing in the bathroom. A chorus of pops as middle-age joints stoop to pick up something. The surprised intake of breath.

“I'll be there in ten.”

–

By the time he arrives your mother has been screaming at you for five minutes. She isn't sure how long that the test had been on the floor of the bathroom so she has convinced herself it was a false positive, but once she comes and confronts you with it all bets are off.

You pack as she screams at you, but when she tries to physically stop you you threaten to call the police and press charges and she backs off and her screeching becomes more indignant. What is she even screaming at? You don't pay attention and you don't care. You don't know this woman, and your heart doesn't even hurt a little for leaving this place behind. It's not your home and it wouldn't ever be, and those two would surely notice the sudden change in you which you don't want to bother with. The father eventually is drawn upstairs by the shouting, his anger was more in the “who touched my baby” direction of things, and you run out the door of not-your home as fast as you can manage when you hear Dirk pulling up. You are pulling on your old backpack and hopping into Dirk's car, ignoring the parents entirely. Your only saving grace is that while they know Dirk they do not have his number or know his parents, and he had covered his license plate with paper before driving up so they have no way to identify him.

Your laptop is tucked safely into your bag, and you brought a disposable phone that you remembered Roxaenne kept in her desk. Dirk glances sideways at you, driving through the suburbia back to his home at a doubtlessly more sedate pace than his arrival. The route is circuitous and has a few switchbacks, probably because you spotted a familiar SUV in the rearview and the parents trying to follow you.

Once you arrive at his home your phone tells you it is nearly eleven-thirty, and you both sneak upstairs to his room where he gives you the bed and sleeps in front of the door with it firmly locked. When you both wake up he doesn't talk much as he packs his own things. Neither of you take that much except your money, and you hope that you can get to your bank and empty your bank account before your mother can get to it. There is nearly six-hundred dollars in there you had been saving so you could go looking for an apartment eventually.

Dirk is ready to go, and he leaves a note for his parents. It's only a matter of time before your parents find out where you are. He goes to his bank first, and empties it. By the time you get to an ATM your bank is already empty, your mom probably hopes to drive you home by lack of money. You shrug, you have your important things, and you and Dirk can get by. Once you are on the road heading south and east, you nearly break the silence but Dirk beats you to it.

“Something happened. Besides this, something happened to you.” You remember how canny he always was, and you can't outright lie.

“Yeah.” There is silence for a bit longer before you finally ask. “Where are we going?” You can tell he has settled in for a long drive.

He sighs before answering. “Texas. Houston I have some friends that will put us up until we have work and can pay rent.”

“I'm sorry, Dirk. I should have done something the morning after or something, but I didn't. I should have-” he cuts you off with a motion.

“Are you considering... your options?” he said quietly. You blink a few moments before gasping and shaking your head. No, no, no. In your mind's eye, in the mother scientist's memories you see a baby Rose and you know that you are going to have a daughter and she is already there in your mind making you visibly recoil for a moment.

“Her name will be Rose.” you give as a response once your mouth catches up with your mind. He gives a startled laugh, and the lines of his form relax slightly.

“His name will be Dave.” he responds with a playful voice, and the tension of the silence in the car is broken easily. There are still the unspoken things in the air, the things you are not willing to let him sacrifice, the things he is determined to sacrifice. You know that you will never be his soul mate, never be his love, but... His sense of responsibility is the same in this life as it was in that lonely future, and you can't bring yourself to try to do any of this by yourself yet.

–

He is a perfect gentleman, considerate and kind despite everything. He's still such a great friend, even if you are not really who he is in love with. Well, the man that he would have loved is ancient now. You think that wouldn't stop him, but he never meets that man. You know where he is though, through a series of incredibly unlikely events. You never for a moment doubt that it's fate that led you to that store, and an older woman with a sweet face that you would recognize anywhere no matter how old it got. You can't stop yourself from a grin, and waving and her name flying from your lips before you can stop yourself. This face is kind, has smiled many years, and has never been taken over by a crazy alien empress with a mind-control device.

“Jane!” and then you pull back, trying to get yourself under control. She turns reflexively and you see her blink at you with mild confusion, but a smile already blooming on her face. You freeze, seeing her smile.

“Nobody has called me that in a long time, young lady.” she says, but there is a glint in her eyes. You hesitate, unsure what you were going to do when you got to this point. So instead you smile back, trying to send all your love to her through your eyes, and you take a gamble. “How is Jake doing?”

She laughs again, and there is no suspicion in her eyes or tightness in her stance. Instead she invites you to her home to meet her son and his wife. They are expecting twins.

The familiarity of her son sends a shard of ice through your heart. He was the man you loved, in one life. He was your best friend's father, in another.

And now here he is as her son. There is a cruel irony in the universe, because you feel your heart beating a bit faster just looking at him. You already knew that the universe was cruel, when you were sitting there on the toilet with the test in your hand and the memories crashing around in your skull. You knew that when you found that you were carrying the children of your gay best friend, and you can feel it in your heart because just as her son's wife is carrying twins you are sure that you are carrying twins as well. You are only a couple months along but you know that your stomach is starting to swell.

The wife's father is Jake, and there is a pain in your heart to hear that. Things and life that have continued despite everything, Jake found a woman a long time ago. Jane's daughter-in-law is due any day now. Your heart clenches, and you smile through the whole meeting. They never ask how you know Jane or why you are there. Jane gets your number and promises to send you emails every now and then if she can “figure out that darn machine”. You see the twinkle there in her eyes, and the curiosity, but she never asks with words. You show her instead, ask what she's baked lately. You ask about her her interests as best as you can, or mention things you like that you know you have in common. You never find out what other name she actually goes by nowadays but you would not be surprised if it was Betty.

–

Two weeks later you get an email. The twins are healthy and doing well. They've been named John and Jade. The email sets you on a crying jag and you just try to get through the days as best as you can.

–

Less than a month later you get an email telling you that Jane's son and daughter-in-law died in a plane crash heading home from a conference across the country while Jane and Jake had both been watching the kids. You want to cry, but honestly it seemed another inevitability. You wonder if you will die again to save your child.

Children.

You had a checkup right before you got the email, that had told you that you were pregnant with twins. Your heart hurts when you think about it, but you tell Dirk anyway. You tell him that you are sure it's a boy and a girl.

Around that time you can start to see the wear that staying with you is having on him. He wants to be there for you, especially since his children are involved even if he never planned on having children. You know that he is concentrating on the result, on helping you raise the twins, and that his own happiness has taken a backseat in the face of this coming storm. So quietly you start to make plans so that he can be happy too. You work with your woefully under-equipped computer, writing code for things you used to take for granted, and gaining a name for yourself online because of the 'innovations' that you are bringing. You could write a textbook for programming, so you do. You have no official certificates, but you have the knowledge of others in the community of who you are and what you do, so you get a friend to put his name on it, with you only listed as a co-author. You get most of the profits, and this is how you spend the majority of your time, your hands flying across the keyboard as you bring things to life that people here and now had never imagined possible. Dirk doesn't really ask about where you get the money after he asks you whether what you are doing is legal and you give him a smile and a shrug and plausible deniability. You don't mind that he has gotten more disconnected from you, it was inevitable when he thinks you are someone you aren't.

You have been leaving hints for him. The only thing you haven't outright said is “do you want to raise the boy and I'll raise the girl?” because saying it out loud would mean that he would have to acknowledge the fact that you plan on raising a child alone, and that he would do the same. But you could date whoever you wanted, when there was time. Not that you would, but you needn't tell him that. You could get by. Well more than get by, now. The new bank account you opened is filling nicely with the funds you get from the little projects that you have, and you aren't worried about providing for yourself once she is born. You try not to think to hard about the little son, the boy that will be named Dave. You hope that neither of these children remember like you do, because you wouldn't wish that on anyone.

You refuse a c-section, hoping against hope that you will be alright, but you don't want the recovery time you would have to take for a cesearian. The delivery is simple, or as simple as twins can be, and you never hold the boy. You have him set right into his father's arms. His hair is light, nearly invisible and when he opens his eyes they are a pink you are sure will deepen into red. Rose's eyes are the nondescript grey of all babies but you picture the lilac filling in and hold her closer.

After a full day of recovering from the birth you leave the hospital and head for Washington to see Jane and little Jade, before heading down to California. You get a job with Google while working on your degree. The work is easy, the classes numbing. You do it all during the time that Rose is sleeping, when she is younger, and then you do it at night, when she starts to sleep through the night.

Those first couple of years are the hardest, because you take all your classes for a four-year degree in just two years, and then you are on to get your masters and doctorate in only a few more.

She is a smart child, so you never let her see you working. She thinks you are some sort of heiress or something, probably. You let her think so, and when she is five you purchase a hunk of land in New York and get it custom built with secret passages and libraries built right in. When she is nine it is complete and you move from California, opting to send your work over the internet than to stay any longer. They allow it because they know you will continue to produce.

When she turns eleven she becomes fascinated with everything that is dark and sad, and you wonder why. You always have a housekeeper around, or an Au Pair, or even a Butler depending on the month and your mood. You can't stand to be alone, even on this secluded property. Never alone, not after that life of silence and sign language.

When she turns twelve she becomes more taciturn and spurns any attempts of yours to talk to her or 'hang out' with her. You are sad, but in your memories of the you that found Rose on a meteor you remember the same thing happening. Her thirteenth and fourteenth years pass without mention, and the only hint you have that anything has changed at all is when you are in your hidden lab, and you discover some chatter on a frequency that has been silent for the ten years you have been monitoring it. The language is familiar in cadence, one that you have spoken to Rose since she was born. She calls it your secret language, and you let her call it that because it's better than what it actually is. Insurance. If They come you want her to be ready. Interesting things are more likely to survive, though you had started to hope that perhaps they didn't exist any more. It was a futile hope.

The only thing that changes after you hear that chatter is that you insist on talking to Rose in the secret language, and she slowly comes out of the rebellion of youth to see you and listen to you.

You are working on something that you hope will help you against Her. Because She will be the death of everything that you love, but you are not sure yet if you have gotten it right, and there is no way to check.

And then one night, when Rose is eighteen and you are sure she is starting to suspect more of your secrets than you thought, there is an alarm in your lab. You have never heard the alarms in it before so you had no idea what it was for a long moment. And then you realized she must have finally found her way into the lab. You had thought for sure that she had given up on finding your secret hiding spots, but the alarm tells you otherwise. As you hurry to the part of the lab that it is originating from you get a sinking feeling in your stomach. The closer you get the higher your panic rises until you are standing in front of your modified appearify-er and Rose is nowhere to be seen and you don't need that feeling in your heart of ice to tell you that she is There. You pray that you managed to prepare her despite never meaning to do this to her.

You pray that she will somehow be safe on Alternia.

**Author's Note:**

> I have had this in the works for a while. I'm finally cracking down with some of my fics and playing with them like a good little author. The one that is coming after this one "Understated" is a Rose fic that I'm sure many of you will love. I'm still not -completely- sure how it's going to end but it has lots of fun things like body dysphoria and culture shock so I'm sure that you will find it satisfactory.
> 
> As always my tumblr is addynotladdy.tumblr.com so feel free to add me if you want to see what other things I'm working on or get notifications on your dash when I update fic. I hope you guys have a fantastic day.


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